I hate to bother you but it is time to say this. The day after the cease-fire was announced in Syria, there were a few demonstrations in Syria. As soon as the first image arrived to Western news bureau, long articles were written about how the "revolution" restarted and that the non-violent peaceful revolution has resumed. Western correspondents in Beirut and their editors in NYC and DC wanted so bad to validate the thesis of the silly narrative of a peaceful democratic liberal and secular revolution in Syria. But what happened next? Well, demonstrations died down, and there was a massive demonstration in support of the regime in Damascus, and there was repression of demonstration in "liberated rebel" areas, and today, there was a demonstration against two rebel groups fighting it out in ghutah. Of course, the coverage of the resumption of "revolution" stopped in its track. Who will first write the first critical article about the "the shoddy journalism in the coverage of the Syrian war"?

"#StopIslam, Trump 2016 written on University of Michigan campus". And Zionist hoodlums want to convince school administrators around US college campuses that anti-Semitism (and all forms of it should be rejected and condemned) is more rampant than anti-Arabness or anti-Islam. (thanks Mel)

architect Zaha Hadid dies aged 65

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

"The letter’s real impact may be political: Israel’s unusual, if not unprecedented inclusion with Egypt on such an inquiry is likely to rile Israel’s allies in Washington, who bristle at the notion that the Middle East’s only established democracy could be lumped in with a notorious human rights abuser like Egypt." (thanks Basim)

"Although the United States is Saudi Arabia’s biggest arms supplier, it has competition in that field. Just weeks ago, British Prime Minister David Cameron gushed about the sale of more “brilliant” U.K.-made jet fighters to Saudi, even while reports continue to arrive about likely war crimes in Yemen."

"UNICEF verified more than 1,560 incidents of grave violations again children in Yemen. As a result, over 900 children were killed and more than 1,300 were injured in the past year alone. On average, at least six children have been killed or injured every day."

"Saudi religious police have arrested a doctor for flying the rainbow pride flag above his home in Jeddah, despite his claims he was unaware of the flag's LGBT symbolism.The man, who was bailed after agreeing to take down the flag, said he bought the rainbow banner online because one of his children liked it and that he did not know it represented LGBT pride, local media has reported.

The report also said two men were recently arrested for using social media to find homosexual partners."

" “Europe is complicit in Israel’s serious violations of international law, including war crimes, by continuing its thriving military trade and joint military research with Israel and its import of settlement products that result from Israel’s theft of Palestinian land and resources, a policy the EU says it opposes,” the BNC’s Nawajaa said."

"The target of the campaign is quite focused: ten international companies (eight of them American) that “perpetuate apartheid and human rights abuses by providing technology and resources used by the Israeli military and government to attack and kill Palestinian civilians, maintain and build the Apartheid Wall and checkpoints, and destroy Palestinian property for the purpose of building illegal settlements.” " (thanks Amir)

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

"It's not a Purim prank: A Syrian opposition figure has turned to the Israeli public in Hebrew, through The Jerusalem Post's sister publication Ma'ariv Hashavua, in order to deliver a message.

"We call on all of the national forces to oust the tyranny, and only afterward, we will choose the form and character of the state," reads a message to the Israeli public, delivered by a third party to Ma'ariv Hashavua.

The Ghad al-Suri movement (Syria's Tomorrow), led by Ahmad Jarba, was officially established in Cairo last week. The movement expressed great interest in sending a message to the Israeli public upon its establishment. " Now I see why those pro-Saudi gangs are called "moderate rebels" in Western media.

Monday, March 28, 2016

If there is one symptom of Western and Arab (oil and gas) media coverage of Syria it is inconsistency and ideologically-driven perspective. Rama Jarrah (who is often called "award-winning"--although I am not sure of the award but it could the Prince Claus award, as the Prince dispenses awards to those who support Western intervention in Syria) called Russia the "airfare of ISIS". Yet, now I am reading especially this week that it was Russian bombing which drove ISIS out of Palmyra. Please stick to one spin. You keep changing.

"Seeing more of its low-income students leave with a diploma in hand has brought California State University, Stanislaus, a measure of fame in recent years. Now the Turlock university tops an unranked national list that could bring it a funding boost as well as glory.

“It’s always nice to be recognized for what we do to serve our students. In this case, being among the best to bring low-income students into a college environment and seeing that they are given the necessary resources to achieve their goal of a college degree is particularly satisfying in that it hits so close to our core mission and responsibilities as a university,” said Stan State President Joe Sheley."

"During the 1960s, Belgium’s need for cheap labor and lax immigration policies set in motion a large number of migrants who would make their way to Belgium, particularly from Morocco and Turkey. Seeking to capitalize on the change in demographics, Faisal was able to secure a 99-year rent-free lease of the oldest mosque in Brussels, the Great Mosque of Brussels, and transform it through the monetary influence of the Muslim World League into an Islamic Cultural Center. Originally built in 1880, the building at the time had seen sufficient deterioration. Over an 11-year period, the Muslim World League funded the restoration process culminating in 1978 with its reopening, along with a fresh importation of pious, Gulf imams that began their Saudi-Wahhabi indoctrination. The Muslim World League has continually funded the Islamic Cultural Center in Brussels since the 1967 agreement, but exact figures are not known due to the lack of auditing and private grasp the kingdom keeps on its financial statements. However, over the past 20 years there have been glimpses into the makeup of the program. In 1997, the secretary general of the Muslim World League thanked King Faisal’s successor, King Fahd, for his continued support, indicating that the House of Saud had donated $1.33 billion in funding since 1962. In 2002, the Saudi newspaper Ain Al-Yaqeen published a detailed report on the extent of Saudi-Wahhabi support throughout the world noting, “the cost of King Fahd’s efforts in this field has been astronomical, amounting to many billions of Saudi riyals. In terms of Islamic institutions, the result is some 210 Islamic centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, more than 1,500 mosques and 202 colleges and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia, and Asia.” Furthermore, a 2008 documentary titled The Qur’an by British filmmaker Antony Thomas put the estimate of Saudi-Wahhabi funding at over $100 billion within the last 30 years." (thanks Lincoln)

There are no editors to go over the texts of Robert Fisk's dispatches? "If you drive from Sunni Muslim Sidon to Shia Muslim southern Lebanon, you can travel from Saudi Arabia to Iran in 10 minutes." (thanks Basim)

From Carol: "With much of the attention about Syria fixed on the return of Palmyra to the Syrian army's fold, I find it intriguing that to this day most of the big businessmen/cronies have stuck it out with Assad. This includes most of the big Sunni business syndicates in Aleppo, Damascus, Homs and Hama. Sure, there are reports that some businessmen are playing all sides by keeping shabiha and FSA groups in their back pockets, but I reckon they know something that we don't... that is that Assad's forces are far, far stronger on the ground than they are being represented in world news, and that has been the case, I reckon, since the start of this bloody war. Word is that even the businessmen that relocated to Egypt or other countries are keen to return under the previous terms arranged with the Assad regime when the situation on the ground allows. I reckon these businessmen would have cut ties with the regime altogether if they truly believed that its end was in sight.

The bolded part is my doing.

Sunnis (and others) who harbor genuine misgivings toward the government may still feel more threatened by the armed opposition. These feelings are likely to have crystallized given the prevalence of radical Sunni Islamist currents within the insurgents. These sentiments are reflected in numerous segments of Syria’s Sunnis. They are most apparent, however, among urban Sunnis, including the middle- and upper-class strata and, in particular, the business and merchant classes that were cultivated by the Ba’athist regime over many years.[25] The armed opposition has singled out a number of powerful Sunni businessmen for their purported roles in helping to sustain the Ba’athists, including the organization of irregular militias; and the smuggling of hard currency, arms, and critical goods.[26]"

"Reporter Matthew Cole discusses his piece for The Intercept headlined "The Pentagon’s Missionary Spies: U.S. Military Used Christian NGO as Front for North Korea Espionage," that looks into U.S. efforts to penetrate North Korea by funding groups like the Humanitarian International Services Group, which was founded by Kay Hiramine, who was a Pentagon spy whose NGO was funded through a highly classified Defense Department program."

"Syrian government forces, backed by heavy Russian airstrikes, have reportedly seized three neighborhoods inside Palmyra, a town with famed Roman-era ruins that fell to Islamic State forces last May. Russian jets had carried out 40 air sorties near Palmyra in the previous 24 hours, hitting 158 targets and killing more than 100 militants, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. Syrian troops and allied militiamen have taken up positions in the three neighborhoods that are part of the modern town, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group." You would not know from this opening paragraphs that this is ISIS which was defeated. Liz Sly would still like to refer to ISIS as "moderate Syrian rebels with strong feminist tendencies".

"He also launched a system of labor camps that became home to gay people, AIDS victims and political opponents." I am sure those labor camps were less inhumane in the 1960s than US Guantanamo in the 21st century. But look at the logic of the sentence above: so if Che founded a school and the school was later used for torture of prisoners, it is the fault of Che?

"Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter 5-year-oldcivil war.

The fighting has intensified over the past two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other as they have maneuvered through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed." (thanks Bassam)

"The Islamic Republic hit the highest rate of executing people since 1989. The official number indicates that Iran executed nearly two times more people in 2015 in comparison to 2010 when the hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in office, as well as roughly 10 times more than the number of executions in 2005.

Approximately 1000 people were executed in 2015, according to the latest report from the United Nations investigator, Ahmed Shaheed, the special rapporteur for human rights in Iran. The unofficial number is higher.

The peak of the executions in 2015 was between April and June in which nearly 4 people were executed every day on average. Most of the executions were carried out in prisons located in urban areas such as Ghezel Hesar and Rajai Shahr in Karaj, and Adel Abad in Shiraz.

Iran has surpassed China in the number of executions being carried out per capita. Most of the executions in Iran are being done by hanging. In addition to the alarming increase in executions, fundamental rights of Iranians and ethnic and religious minorities appear to have regressed in 2015 as well. In addition, this year witnessed the highest level of disqualification of political candidates, 61 percent, since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, 1979." (thanks Rabih)

"Moreover, the most astounding revelation is the Mossad agent who fired the fatal gunshots: Otto Skorzeny, one of the Israeli spy agency’s most valuable assets, was a former lieutenant colonel in Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS and one of Adolf Hitler’s personal favorites among the party’s commando leaders. The Führer, in fact, awarded Skorzeny the army’s most prestigious medal, the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, for leading the rescue operation that plucked his friend Benito Mussolini out from the hands of his captors." (thanks Yusuf)

"QUESTION:-- over the last many months was, one, that Assad wasn’t fighting Daesh properly and that he was mainly fighting the Syrian – moderate Syrian opposition --

MR TONER: And that’s true.

QUESTION: -- and that carried over to what the Russians were doing as well.

MR TONER: And that’s true.

QUESTION: So now that they seem to be doing some of that. Shouldn’t that be lauded, in your estimation? And then the second thing --

MR TONER: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- was that – well, you can answer the first thing --

MR TONER: Okay.

QUESTION: -- while I remember the second.

MR TONER: So I’m not going to laud it, and I’m not going to laud it because it’s important to remember that one of the reasons Daesh is in Syria is because Assad’s brutal crackdown on his own people created the kind of vacuum, if you will, that has allowed a group like ISIL or Daesh to flourish. Just because he’s now, given the cessation of hostilities, willing and/or able to divert his forces to take on Daesh doesn’t exonerate him or his regime from the gross abuses that they’ve carried out against the Syrian people.

Again, it is a – it reflects, I think, the complex state of affairs that is Syria today, and it’s why we need a political transition away from Assad to a transitional government that’s supported by all the Syrian people, because we do have to deal with Daesh. So at the same time we support any effort to destroy or dismantle Daesh, I think we have to keep our eyes on the longer-term goal, which is a peaceful transition and political future for the people in Syria."

"A striking feature of the Isis victory in May last year was that its fighters were able to advance without being bombarded by US aircraft because the US did not want to be accused of doing anything that would help the Assad government,"

" “Today, in Brussels, 95 percent of the courses offered on Islam for Muslims are operated by young preachers trained in Saudi Arabia,” Michael Privot, director of the Brussels-based European Network Against Racism, said in an interview with an Italian journalist."

"The revelation that elite Royal Navy commandos are running week-long training courses for Bahraini personnel has outraged human rights campaigners, who accuse the regime of using snipers to target protesters during anti-government protests in 2011." "The warship docked at HMS Juffair, Britain’s new naval base in Bahrain, and Royal Marines marksmen trained “multiple groups” of Bahraini personnel and were “awarded” Bahraini sniper badges in return."

"Over the past several years, the U.S. has launched hideous civilian-slaughtering strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Libya, and Iraq." "You’ll almost never hear any of those victims’ names on CNN, NPR, or most other large U.S. media outlets." "That’s by design. It’s because U.S. media outlets love to dramatize and endlessly highlight Western victims of violence, while rendering almost completely invisible the victims of their own side’s violence." (thanks Amir)

How come those religious kooks never receive the condemnation and mockery that Muslim religious kooks receive? "Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef argues that Jewish law prohibits non-Jews from living in Israel unless they have accepted Noachide laws, adding that some non-Jews live in Israel to serve the Jewish population."

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Having ignored the weeks-long battles between Syrian regime forces (and Hizbullah forces) against ISIS forces (because these battles run counter to the narrative promoted by Syrian rebels and Western correspondents in Beirut to the effect that Syrian regime forces (and their allies) never ever engage in battles against ISIS), Anne Barnard suddenly discovers that that the battles are taking place (she had a brief dispatch only a few days ago) but uses the language of Syrian regime forces are "said to take over the city". But then adds this: "while also enduring heavy shelling on civilian areas by government forces." But the New York Times never expresses concern about civilian areas in ISIS territory when the bombers are US or their allies in Iraq or Syria?

"Israeli and Jordanian fighter planes jointly confronted Russian air force jets over the southern Syrian border, according to a briefing by Jordan's King Abdullah to senior members of the United States Congress. The date of the confrontation was not disclosed during Abdullah's meeting in Washington on January 11. The incident was reported by Middle East Eye, who said it had seen an account of the meeting." He would never brag about that in Arabic.

Are you aware that based on that stupid NYC judge (based on a non-show by one-side) Saudi regime media are now jubilantly exonerating Bin Laden of responsibility for Sep. 11 and now are blaming the Iranian "Supreme leader"?

By the way, this is not unusual. Saudi regime often go against a sitting US president in his last year. They did the same against Bush in 2007, and even against Reagan in 1987. Yet, there is more than a tinge of racism in their attacks on Obama.

"“If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection,” Mr. Trump said during a 100-minute interview on foreign policy, spread over two phone calls on Friday, “I don’t think it would be around.”"

"But clearly Castro had not been briefed that the two American journalists’ multipart questions would include tart ones for him. " Wow. How impressive. They don't dare ask probing questions to their own leaders but they can ask probing questions to Castro. They won't dare ask such questions to Saudi king or to Israeli occupation leader, but to Castro (who has killed none) they can. How impressive.

"As one Muslim activist in the U.S., As'ad AbuKhalil, a political scientist at California State University, Stanislaus, puts it, the aim of the BDS campaign should be to bring down the state of Israel because “Justice and freedom for the Palestinians are incompatible with the existence of the state of Israel.” That’s pretty much the way Black Lives Matter sees things, too. "

Saturday, March 26, 2016

According to the book, Ms Suu Kyi lost her temper after a robust interview with BBC Today programme presenter Mishal Husain and muttered off-air: “No-one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.” (thanks Basim)

This guy who never studied the Middle East is director of Middle East policy at Brookings. Remember when Brookings used to house liberal Middle East experts (like William Quandt). This guy authored a book I nominated as one of the worst books ever on the Middle East in the last decade or two (his A Hight Prince: the Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrosim". He testified recently before Congress on Hizbullah. This sums up his wisdom: "Finally, the United States should work with Israel to ensure its deterrence of Hizbollah". This now passes as Middle East expertise in Washington. Back in the 1970s, the Middle East experts at Brookings defied Washington conventional wisdom and published a book on Palestinian nationalism which rejected the paradigm of terrorism. And now this guy teaches at the foreign service school at Georgetown.

Friday, March 25, 2016

"Keeping up its drumbeat of colorfully worded threats, North Korea warned Wednesday that it may launch an “ultra-precision strike” to “scorch” the South Korean president’s office....In its latest missive, the North’s organization in charge of relations with the South declared that Pyongyang’s forces were prepared to “annihilat[e] the enemy without mercy.” “We do not hide the fact that it may start inside the Cheong wa Dae or near it,” the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried Wednesday by the North’s Korean Central News Agency, using the Korean term for South Korea’s presidential Blue House. President Park Geun-hye lives and works there."

"According to the Justice Department, an “outside party” approached the agency Sunday with the offer of assistance, prompting it to ask a federal court in Riverside on Monday to postpone a hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday while the department vetted the merits of the approach. Ha’aretz, an Israeli newspaper, suggested that Cellebrite, a technology company from Tel Aviv,might have come to the agency’s aid.

Representatives for the Department of Justice, which is pursuing the order on the FBI’s behalf, and Cellebrite declined to comment on the report." (thanks Terry)

Look how much space for this story in the WP: "Syrian army reaches outskirts of Palmyra: Syrian government forces backed by Russian airstrikes have advanced swiftly in central Syria, seizing high ground around Palmyra and positioning themselves to recapture the historic town, held by the Islamic State militant group. The troops, supported by Lebanese Shiite militiamen, reached within 1.8 miles of the town, according to the state TV broadcaster." That is the whole story.

"Israel's Cellebrite, a provider of mobile forensic software, is helping the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's attempt to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California shooters, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on Wednesday. The two sides were set to face off in court on Tuesday, but on Monday a federal judge agreed to the government's request to postpone the hearing after U.S. prosecutors said a "third party" had presented a possible method for opening an encrypted iPhone." (thanks Basim)

Liz Sly and the US media chorus--not to mention the US administration and Congress--are still insisting that Russian bombs are falling on "moderate rebels" while French defense minister praised yesterday Russian focus on ISIS.

"In December, the U.N. said Yemen was on the brink of famine." "There has been almost no acknowledgement of the ongoing U.S.-backed war in the American political system, and it has not been mentioned in any of the presidential debates."

"in August, a WikiLeaks cable revealed that a staff member of the Saudi embassy in Belgium was expelled years ago over his active role in spreading the extreme so-called Takfiri dogma. The cable – between the Saudi King and his Home Minister – referred to Belgian demands that the ICC’s Saudi director, Khalid Alabri, should leave the country, saying that his messages were far too extreme, and that his status as director meant he should not be preaching anyway."

"Most of the messages sent to the people of Brussels this week were heartfelt and appreciated. A few, however, were cynical. One was contemptible; it came from Israel. The Israeli government as a whole claimed it “stands with Brussels.” As a resident of Brussels, I refuse that solidarity." "The most fitting tribute to victims of violence is to tackle its root causes. That means fighting imperialism, bigotry and inequality. It means defending multiculturalism, a beautiful idea that Israel has rejected." (thanks Amir)

One of the manifestations of the inadequacy of Western reporting on the Middle East is the ignored passing of one of the most influential or read Arab intellectuals of the 20th century, the Syrian George Tarabishi. He died a week ago and I didn't see any reference to him in any Western media. His intellectual transformation took him from Ba`thism to Marxism to Existentialism to a mix of liberalism/Freudism. He was silent about the Syrian war because he--like the Syrian Adonis--never was a fan of the Syrian "revolution". But, also like Adonis, he avoided criticizing the Syrian regime. He authored and translated many works: almost a 100 books. He translated (not always adequately) works of Western thought (Freud and Marcuse among others) but from French translations and not from the original German or English. He was a great stylist who wrote on many topics. I, of course, disagreed with him politically and only met him once briefly in London. For those who are interested in learning more about him, the writings of Michaelle Browers of Wake Forest University include references to him. Michaelle, who has an excellent command of Arabic, is one of the few Western experts of the Middle East who keep track of Arab intellectual debates and trends.

PS Of course, the fact that most Western correspondents can't read Arabic and can't follow Arabic intellectual debates explains the omission in coverage.

PPS Forgot to mention that his most famous intellectual battle was against the works of Muhammad `Abid Al-Jabiri.

PPPS There are also critical references to Tarabishi in Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs.

So former Ben Ladenite-turned Saudi Wahhabi liberal, Jamal Khashuqji (who worked for various Saudi princes over the years) decided to move the new news channel that he will be running on behalf of his patron prince, Al-Walid, from Bahrain (where it lasted for one day before it was shut down by the Bahrain tyrants) to Doha. The amusing thing is that Khashuji during the conflict years between the Saudi and Qatari regimes was one of the most loud voices against the Qatari regime. In this interview he defines the role of the new channel: "And he confirmed that the stances that will be adopted by the Al-Arab channel will be to serve to the policies of Saudi Arabia which we believe in". Kid you not.

"“If in Belgium, they continue to eat chocolate and enjoy the good life with their liberalism and democracy, and do not understand that some of the Muslims there are planning terror, they will never be able to fight against them," Israel’s minister of intelligence and atomic energy, Yisrael Katz, told Israel Radio on Wednesday morning." (thanks Fred)

There is no question that Russian bombing of ISIS has been far more effective in crippling the capabilities of ISIS than US bombing. The destruction of ISIS oil export abilities was undertaken by Russian bombing. The US failed (or didn't even try to) in destroying their truck and expert facilities.

After weeks--by the admission of the New York Times--of ferocious battles between Syrian regime forces and ISIS the New York Times just today decided to write a brief story. You see this contradict the conventional narrative about Syria, in which the story holds that there were never battles between Syrian regime forces (or their allies) and ISIS.

As-Safir published this week what it said was a medical report about the degenerative mental state of the Saudi King. The Saudi ambassador in Lebanon issued a stern warning and denied the report and insisted that the King is in excellent health. You know what that means? The King is on the verge of dying any second now.

Last night, after I wrote my brief post about the UC Regents decision regarding free speech and anti-Zionism, I thought about the matter. I felt that we should not be really celebrating the decision as a victory for free speech. It should be seen as a regression of democracy. The matter should not have come to that in the first place. We should not celebrate the basic and axiomatic right to criticize a foreign government and an ideology. The harm to democracy has already been done by deliberating the matter. This was a setback for democracy regardless of the outcome.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

"University of Californiaregents said Wednesday that anti-Semitism has “no place” on a college campus but declined to issue a broad condemnation of anti-Zionism as a form of discrimination. Instead, they unanimously approved a report on intolerance that decried only “anti-Semitic forms” of the political ideology, which challenges Israel's right to exist in Palestine." This is basically a reiteration of our stance in the pro-Palestinian community in the US: we reject any and all forms of anti-Semitism of any kind, and we don't welcome any anti-Semites in our midst. We remain steadfast in our stiff and categorical opposition to all forms of Zionism, which is a form of racism and segregation. This victory for free speech should energize the anti-Zionist movement worldwide. States based on racism, exclusion, and occupation have no place in the modern world. Furthermore, all states based on an exclusive religious identity--whether Muslim or Jewish--should be opposed as relics of medieval times.

"Around midday on March 15, fighter jets from a Saudi-led coalition bombed a market in Mastaba, in Yemen’s northern province of Hajjah. The latest count indicates that about 120 people were killed, including more than 20 children, and 80 were wounded in the strikes — perhaps the deadliest attack yet in a war that has killed more than 6,000 civilians." "While the horrific terrorist attacks against civilians in Europe receive extensive media coverage, the U.S.-supported bombings of civilians in Yemen get scant attention."

"The twists and turns in the three major newspapers’ coverage of the issue of relations between US-supported opposition groups and Al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria thus show how major news sources slighted or steered clear of the fact that US client armed groups were closely intertwined with a branch of Al Qaeda"

"An interactive tool created by Google was designed to encourage Syrian rebels and help bring down the Assad regime, Hillary Clinton's leaked emails have reportedly revealed." "WikiLeaks has previously been responsible for publicising links between Google and high-ranking State Department officials, and founder Julian Assange's 2014 book When Google Met WikiLeaks accused the company of helping to further the US government's foreign policy agenda." (thanks Amir)

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

This is rather curious. There are ferocious battles going on around Palmyra between the Syrian regime forces and ISIS forces but the Western media does not cover it because it does not fit into the Liz Sly narrative: that there are no battles between Syrian regime forces and ISIS.

"When Nimr al-Nimr, a peaceful government critic, was executed in January, the Podesta Group helped the regime shape media coverage, providing a quote to the New York Times to smear Nimr as a “terrorist.” Other American consultants working for the Saudi Embassy used social media and other efforts to attack Nimr and justify the execution."

Obama relies on UAE* ruling dynasty to promote a moderate version of Islam. Sanders relies on Jordan ruling dynasty to promote a moderate version of Islam. While Hillary relies on Netanyahu to promote a moderate version of Islam.

*I am not making this up. The US administration has assigned UAE regime to be in charge of promoting a moderate message of Islam on social media to combat ISIS.

"Stickers calling for the boycott of Israeli products have been spotted in stores across Canada." "They read: “Warning! Do not buy this product. Made in Israel: A country violating international law, the 4th Geneva Convention, and fundamental human rights…#BDS.” "

"The official title of the religious police is the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Chillingly, only two other movements in the world — the Taliban in Afghanistan and Islamic State in Syria and Iraq — have organisations with the same name. The Saudi government has always denied that it has any connection either with Islamic State or with Al Qaeda. Nevertheless, both jihadist organisations endorse the state religion which Saudi Arabia has spent an estimated $70 billion (£48 billion) exporting around the world."

Western governments will spend years and years trying to deal with the dangers of terrorism but they will finally realize the ultimate contradiction in their policies: that they are aligned with the Saudi regime which remains the Number One source of terrorism i noted world (directly or indirectly, materially or ideologically).

"Saudi Arabia Uncovered aims to reveal the hidden reality inside one of the world's most secretive and strict Islamic regimes and questions Britain's relationship with the country." "Saudi Arabia is a key ally of the West," "The documentary was filmed for six months undercover and also exposes the extremes of wealth and poverty in Saudi Arabia. Women are considered to be second-class citizens and police beating women is the norm."

"Palestinians must travel on separate roads, which are patrolled by Israeli soldiers. They often walk under enormous nets that look like cages, and settlers drop objects — and even urinate — on them from their windows above. Levy described Israel’s occupation simply as a form of apartheid. “It looks like apartheid, it walks like apartheid, it behaves like apartheid; it’s apartheid,” he said." (thanks Amir)

Western governments (notably US but also France and UK) have secret and not-so secret programs to train Syrian rebels: we know now (see yesterday post here) that 50% of US arms in Syria wind up in the hands of Nusrah (the official Al-Qa`idah branch in Syria). Among the training that ISIS and Nusrah give is to make home-made explosives (from hair bleach and nail polish, as we learned from an investigation by the NYT of the Paris bombing). Those graduates then spread around the world. Western governments ignored those same Jihadi Syrian rebels when they were sending car bombs into Lebanon: they thought as long as they are hitting Lebanese, they don't have to worry about them.

Zionists are desperate in the 21st century. They know that anti-Zionism is spreading among the youth of the world. The only response they have is to try to censor expressions of anti-Zionism. They make force the US Department of State to introduce a new ridiculous definition (since when the US Department of State become the headquarters of philosophical and political definitions?), and they can pass new laws and regulations to censor voices of anti-Zionism. But they will never succeed in silencing our anti-Zionist voices. And their most vulgar and crude and anti-Semitic tricks is to conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. Those are the same people who tolerate anti-Semitism when it comes from the pro-Zionist camp (as in the evangelical Christian crowd). Do you remember when US House member, Robert Dornan (a right-wing loud mouth of the 1980s and 1990s) referred to Soviet spokesperson (Vladimir Posner) with a grotesque anti-Semitic slur? The Zionists came to his defense at the time because of his pro-Israeli voting record.

"If anti-Zionism is conflated with anti-Semitism or treated as a covert manifestation of it, then any criticism of Israel might conceivably be perceived as harassment under these policies. This would surely constitute a violation of the First Amendment rights of students, staff, and faculty at the University of California as well as a violation of the university’s own academic freedom protections under Policy 010 of the Academic Personnel Manual. It would also undermine the principles of academic freedom that all institutions of higher education have a duty to respect and defend."

You can really trace the current problem of terrorism hitting Europe to the beginning of the Syrian war in 2012 and the insistence of Western governments--against all available evidence--on creating the myth of "moderate Syrian rebels". Western propaganda glamorized a non-existing Syrian "revolution" and romanticized those Muslims in the West who took the trip to fight with the various Jihadi group. The myth of the moderate Free Syrian Army was in full swing at the time, and any opinion which warned of the dangers of rise of terrorist groups in Syria was immediately dismissed as pure Syrian regime propaganda. The dangerous propaganda ploy of Western media continues. Look at this map from this article in Bloomberg. Look how the areas designated as "Syrian rebels" is so widely expanded. In fact, if you look at the areas around Idlib, the dominant force there is Nusrah Front even if it works with other militant Jihadi groups under the banner of Jaysh Al-Fath. So basically, whenever Nusrah Front (the descenents of the terrorists of Sep. 11) align themselves with other rebel groups, Western propaganda and media outlet regard the rebels in that area as "moderate Syrian rebels" because they are not fighting under the banner of Nusrah although the banner exists. This is one of many example but it gives you an idea. And Zionists have been most active in this regard and in spinning this propaganda but they are not alone: some liberal and leftists have also been spinning this fable.

PS This article by the research arm of the Israeli lobby concedes the point about Nusrah Front in Idlib.

Monday, March 21, 2016

"we should re-impose sanctions and all options are back on the table.Moreover, the deal does not mean we let Iran’s aggressive acts go unchecked. The world must stand united in condemningIran’s recent ballistic missile tests as well as its continued support for terrorism through groups like Hezbollah."

"What I am saying is that the major powers in the region – especially the Gulf States – have to take greater responsibility for the future of the Middle East." If this is what the US socialist candidate thinks, imagine how bad the rest would be.

"By 2014, the Gulf money in Washington had become unmistakable. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), for example, had opened a towering, gleaming new office downtown, financed with a $1 million donation from the United Arab Emirates.

The New York Times, that year, published an investigation on foreign government funding at think tanks, which the paper found had risen dramatically. It identified millions in donations going to many of Washington's most influential institutions, which were "producing policy papers, hosting forums and organizing private briefings for senior United States government officials that typically align with the foreign governments’ agendas." The Times investigation detailed several incidents in which donations from foreign governments had seemed to directly influence think tank behavior:

Saleem Ali, a former visiting scholar at the Brookings center in Qatar, said he had been told not to write critically of the Qatari government.

Emails between the Center for Global Development and the Norwegian government seemed to indicate a quid pro quo in which Norway would "donate" to CGD, which in turn would help persuade US government officials to increase funding for global forest protection efforts by $250 million.

The Japanese government gave to CSIS, which now sponsors Japanese officials as "visiting scholars" who are granted access to US government officials by way of CSIS events and preexisting relationships.

The United Arab Emirates, also a CSIS donor, got its ambassador to the US invited to participate on a public panel alongside then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey, whom the ambassador grilled about US commitments to the UAE."

"But when US intelligence agencies checked the list against their own information, they found that many of the targets had little or no military value, according to a report at the time by the Wall Street Journal's Maria Abi-Habib and Adam Entous. Many were civilian structures in or near population centers. The US warned Saudi Arabia off the targets, and Saudi officials said they complied. But when the air war began, Saudi bombs fell heavily on "hospitals, schools, a refugee camp, and neighborhoods," according to the Journal. The US initially held back from the war. But soon, in an apparent effort to purchase Saudi acquiescence to the nuclear deal with Iran, the US substantially increased support for the Saudi-led campaign, providing midair refueling, weapons and supplies, targeting information, and 45 dedicated intelligence analysts."

There is so much here about how US wittingly or unwittingly has been helping Al-Qa`idah in Syria. Furthermore, it seems that Jamal Ma`ruf (who at one point was hailed as the last hope of US foreign policy in Syria and who was hailed as a moderate and secular rebel leader by David Ignatius and Liz Sly among many others in the Western press) had pledged allegiance secretly to Abu Muhammad Julani.

"Not one of the EU nations has, to date, taken on Saudi Arabia, the promulgator of hardline Islam and zealous intolerance. Saudi Arabia went into Belgium in the late sixties and spread Wahhabism among the newly arrived Muslim migrants. To date, $70bn has been spent on this global brainwashing and destabilisation programme. This Tuesday evening on ITV, a secretly filmed documentary investigates the nefarious kingdom. Will this exposure alter Europe’s special relationship with the most evil of empires? No." "The European crusaders who attacked Iraq and Libya and play hidden war games in Syria have never accepted responsibility for the churn, chaos, rage and violence that they left in their wake. Western sanctions and bombs wiped out more people in Iraq than Saddam ever did." (thanks Amir)

" Al-Qaeda is expanding in Yemen, where Western leaders have given a free pass to Saudi Arabia to launch a bombing campaign that has wrecked the country." "By taking up the cause of the Syrian and Libyan opposition and destroying the Syrian and Libyan states, France and Britain opened the door to Isis and should share in the blame for the rise of Isis and terrorism in Europe."

"Clooney mentioned countries such as Sudan, Iran and North Korea in her 12-minute speech, however she made no specific references to rights abuses in Gulf Arab countries or the humanitarian toll of the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen, which the UAE is taking part in."

Elliott Abrams is now considered a Middle East expert. Back when I came to the US in the 1980s, he posed as a Latin American expert in the Reagan administration. Of course, he had studied neither the Middle East nor Latin America. In the US, zealotry makes up for lack of expertise.

Is it not hilarious that AIPAC would feature this (unknown) Palestinian speaker who runs a non-violence shop but AIPAC would never feature an Israeli advocate of non-violence. But this is Zionism: violence is endorsed for one side one the conflict only. "Mr. Ali Abu Awwad:

Founder, Taghyeer (Change) Palestinian National Nonviolence Movement

Co-Director of Roots/Judr/Shorashim: A Local Israel Israeli-Palestinian Initiative for Understanding, Nonviolence and Transformation".

""Governments must be prepared to be transparent and get their message out first."

Clooney mentioned countries such as Sudan, Iran and North Korea in her 12-minute speech." How brave of her to mention human rights violations in Iran and North Korea and Sudan while in the Gulf. How courageous of her.

"“As the Jewish people know better than any other people, any action that marginalizes one religious or ethnic group imperils us all,” Biden said to loud applause from the crowd of more than 18,000. “It is incumbent on all of us to stand up against those who traffic in pernicious stereotypes, who seek to scare and divide us for political gain, because the future belongs to the bridge builders, not the wall builders.”" (thanks Mick)

Sunday, March 20, 2016

I am getting quite sick of the empty theatrics of Trudeau. On matter of policy, he does not represent what people are projecting onto him. The repeat of the Obama syndrome. What is that Texas saying?Diddle me once?

HRW has joined the Gulf regime chorus (not the first time). It is suddenly concerned over the plight of civilians in Raqqa. Has it ever expressed concern over the plight of civilians in Raqqa when US bombs fall on it? I don't recall. Of course, both Russian and US bombs kill civilians but according to HRW US bombs in Syria don't kill civilians.

A Saudi student told me a few days ago that in mosques across the kingdom, regime clerics used to include in their prayers this call: "God, may you bring ruin to US. God, may you bring ruin to Israel". But around six years ago an order came to end those calls.

Comic by Terry Furry, reproduced from "Heard the One About the Funny Leftist?" by Cris Thompson, East Bay Express

As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.

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